The Boy Wonder

I had the pleasure of interviewing former President and Publisher of DC Comics, Paul Levitz, about his return to the world of comic book writing. It ran last week in our features section and I figured why not put it up here.

Paul Levitz began working for DC Comics as a fresh faced 16 year-old kid. 37 years later he had put together a career that has seen him fill just about every position the company had to offer from assistant editor, to successful writer to eventually taking his seat at the head of the table as president and publisher of DC Comics. Levitz has recently stepped down as president and moved back into a familiar role. Starting this month, he will return as the regular writer on Legion of Superheroes, a book that he authored for nearly the entire decade of the 1980s. To commemorate his return to the Legion and the world of the 31st century, Levitz will also be hitting the road to do some appearances and book signings. He’ll be making an appearance Thursday May 20th at Dewey’s Comic City in Madison from 5:30 to 7:30. He’ll be talking comics and signing copies of his new Legion of Superheroes no.1. We had the opportunity to sit and talk with him about his long career in comics and his return to writing.

How and when did you get your start in the comics industry? I started out publishing one of the early fanzines about comics, The Comic Reader, and that got me to know people in the business so I went from there to doing letter columns to being an assistant editor at DC and ultimately to writing stories. I was 16 when I started freelancing for DC.

What was your first writing job for DC? First story I wrote was a little mystery story for ‘Weird Mystery Tales’ no.15. It was a mystery story about a witch.

People know what a comic book writer and artist do but what does the president of a comic book company do all day? The neat thing about that job is the incredible variety of things you do. It was one of the best jobs on the planet because you’d go from working with the creative people who put out a comic book to working on a business problem like how to get comics better distributed to bookstores to working with a filmmaker about a motion picture version of the characters to working with a printer or working on ordinary corporate administrative tasks. Never the same thing twice.

During your time at the helm movies became a much bigger part of the equation. Were there films you were more involved with than others? The involvement always varies depending on who the director is and what kind of help you can be. You start out in the process offering whatever resources are available. I had a wonderful working relationship with a number of directors over the years. One of my favorites was Chris Nolan on the Batman films. He wanted to immerse himself in the lore of the character and we’d get in conversations about different story approaches that had been done over the years so we’d look at different materials we had available and he’d use them as fuel for his own creative development. But at the end of the day it’s always the director that makes a film great not anybody who’s kibitzing with him.

During your time at DC are there any individual books or events that stand out for you? It’s a long run. I was at DC, on staff, for 37 years. I have fond memories of everything from being on set during the filming of the first Superman movie on up to the first time we were publishing comics that were the voice of an author like Frank Miller’s Dark Knight returns and everything in between. The Death of Superman, Watchmen, we did so much great stuff through all those years. For a kid who was a comic book fan to be locked up in the candy factory all those years was very cool.

The Legion of Superheroes is a book you have a long history with. When did you first start with the Legion? I did two runs on the Legion. One that came out from roughly 1977 to 1978 and another from roughly 1981 to 1989.

I have a lot of those books bagged and boarded in my garage.Bless you. Thanks for the contribution to my rent.

The legion has had about a dozen different iterations over the past decade how does that affect your approach to the new book?Well, I’m trying to relaunch the Legion taking advantage of what Geoff Johns recently did in his ‘Superman and the Legion’ arc and the ‘Final Crisis and the Legion of the Free World’ story line, both of which reconnected back to the material I was writing in the late 80s. The mythology takes place as if some things have happened since the last stories I wrote but not n enormous amount. If I’ve done my job well the book should be accessible to a new reader who hasn’t read the Legion before. And for an older fan, like you, we have a good story and you’ll also appreciate some Easter eggs of additional cool things that tie back to story elements you’ll remember that may not be as clear to a newer reader, but those shouldn’t be road bumps that stop them from having fun.

I have a deep and abiding love for the Legion of Substitute heroes, so please do whatever you can to bring them back. I think Chlorophyll Kid should have his own standalone book. Ha! I’m not sure I’m brave enough to write that one.

How are you going to kick off your first arc on Legion?Geoff Johns introduced a wonderful character called Earth Man who is essentially a zealous patriot for humanity on Earth and thinks all the alien worlds and outer worlds should get the hell off Earth. By the end of Geoff’s storyline he’s been toppled from his role as would be dictator and we pick up with the Earth government forcing the Legion to take him in as a member. We explore the dichotomy of a character that thought he was being a hero in his own mind and had, in fact, some positive and noble goals but also his rampant xenophobia had significant parallels to the problems with racism that exist on Earth today.

In addition you’re also going to write a Super boy and the Legion feature in Adventure comics. What’s that all about? It starts a couple of weeks later and it goes back and tells more of the bits and pieces of Legion history and sort of fills in details to make it more comfortable to start learning about the complex world of the 31st century.

Are there any characters or books you’d like to work on besides Legion of Superheroes?There’s a long list of things I’d like to write, but obviously there are creative teams already in place on those books. I’m also doing an arc of the Superman/Batman title that starts a bit after Legion drawn by the wonderfully talented Jerry Ordway. He’s drawing in this really lovely ink wash style that he doesn’t usually use and it’s absolutely beautiful. I’m having a lot of fun with that. Part of the fun of being back in the game is the art is all-new. Yildiray Cinar, who is the principal Legion artist is this extraordinary new artist from Istanbul who I think is going to make his reputation doing the Legion. I think he’s at a great moment in his career and the chance to collaborate with guys like Yildiray, on the one hand, and guys like Jerry Ordway on the other…it’s a lovely moment to play. Hopefully I’ll get to do a lot of different things at this stage.

I’m going to ask you to dust off your publisher’s hat and address the digital age. In the era of digital entertainment how had the printed comic managed to endure?I think the comic book continues because it’s a unique, distinctive physical artifact. You talked about having a basement full of bagged and boarded books. People have a great feeling for the physical object itself as well as the stories they tell and that’s why it’s continued to thrive.

You’re going to be consulting for the new, entertainment property friendly DC Entertainment. What will you be consulting on? Whatever they ask me too. I have been part of the company from the time I was 16 years old and I only wish them success. If they think I can be helpful I’m only happy to do it.

37 years is a long time to be around superheroes 24 hours a day. Now that you’re free of the day-to-day obligations of running the ship, do you have any plans outside of comics?Absolutely. Some of them take a little longer to work through. I hope to do some longer form fiction in the course of my writing career. A lot of other forms that I’d like to work in that I haven’t had the chance to play in. I’d like to try lots of the things, like graphic novels, that weren’t possible to do when I was writing comics before, but I figure, two at a time. There are only so many things you can juggle simultaneously.